Life, Like This
by NDV
Summary: Magda reflects and comes to a decision on her life...
1. Author's Notes

Authors Notes: Yes, you have to read these!  
  
Okay, as you'll see at the top of each story for those that I know will skip this, this is a series within a series. The stories are to be read in any order, except for these three, which must be read as ordered or they won't flow correctly. If you'll click the author name, you'll see a listing of all stories, and you'll be able to find the others if you're, by some odd chance, interested in them. Here's the complete list:  
  
1. A Slow Sort of Hell  
2. Both of Them, Empty (I in the West Wing series)  
3. Sawijika  
4. Of Dreams and Fairy Tales (II in the West Wing series)  
5. Life, Like this  
6. Whiskey and Wine (III in the West Wing series)  
  
Whew, okay, hope that covers it all... I don't own the song (Picture by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow) and I don't own the characters. So there, consider it all disclaimed. Hope you enjoy!  
  
Always,  
  
Liza 


	2. Life, Like This

Life, Like This  
  
-Liza ([1]lizaausten@tri-countynet.net or [2]malenka@malenkaya.com)  
  
Disclaimers/Spoilers/Ratings/other nonsense: I don't own the characters that show up on the show, so whatever. I also don't own the song. Any spoilers that are referenced here are not actually... you know, out-and-out referenced, except the existence of Magda, Ben, Gabriel, and a select few others. The almost-engagement, too. Most of it's just speculation based on a line here and a line there. The rating is probably something akin to PG13, maybe a light R because of references to sex, abandonment, some language, and a few other things. Consider yourself informed, warned, and et cetera.  
Important Note: This is part of a series that crosses several fandoms (currently, CSI, the West Wing, and ER are being planned, the Division, - but NONE of these are crossovers. I am not a crossover fan, myself, so I don't write crossovers). The fifth (rather, 5a) being this one, Life, Like This, based upon the words from the fifth stanza of the song "Picture" by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. If you'd like to read the others, please contact me at lizaausten@tri-countynet.net and I'll gladly provide you with a copy or a link to the other(s). The understanding of each story depends only on that one, meaning you don't have to read any of the others if you're so inclined. They're all stand alone, but have the song in common - a different stanza per story.  
My thanks go to Claudie for the reading, editing, idea-bouncing, and helping, and a good friend for making me listen to the song (I think she prefers to remain nameless).  
I love hearing opinions, good or bad, and feedback is this girl's best friend. Eh, who needs jewelry anyway?  
-I saw you yesterday with an old friend  
It was the same old same how've you been  
Since you've been gone my world's been  
Dark and grey.  
You reminded me of brighter days  
I'd hoped you were coming home to stay  
I was headed to church  
I was off to drink you away.  
I thought about you for a long time  
Can't seem to get you off my mind  
I can't understand why we're living  
Life this way.-  
  
She was twenty-three years old and angry with her mother when she'd met him, and he was everything she wasn't and all she ever dreamed of. They'd opened a new club in downtown San Francisco and his up and coming Latino band was going to be playing and when he caught her eye from across the room she was completely enamored. They danced around each other from Saturday to Friday until they fell into bed on his last night, and her life changed forever. He  
was kind and gentle, but he ignored her hesitance with a firmness that made her tremble. He was her first lover and for a long time afterward, he was her last. He was gone when she woke the next morning, wound in satin sheets with curly hair falling, unruly, over her eyes, and she cried as she shut the door behind her.  
  
Six weeks later on the way to church, her mother had finally asked where she'd been and she closed her eyes and turned her head, and it was another two days before she finally answered, and then it wasn't with her whereabouts but her health.  
  
"You're going to be a grandmother," she'd said the day she'd graduated from the police academy, and her mother had begun to cry.  
  
They were the only ones left, alone.  
----  
  
She'd seen him one day a few weeks before their son was born, his name had been on a flier for the same old club, and she'd been working a desk job for the SFPD for six months. He had smiled at her from the stage while she was sitting there watching, and his grin had only just faltered when he saw her expanded waistline. He'd held her hand beneath the table and blown off the last two songs of his set, and he'd promised her the world when he held her that  
night.  
  
But once again, she woke twisted in satin sheets and alone, for he'd panicked and ran, and this time she'd hardened and vowed she'd never see him again. She was late for work while she prayed at church, begging for absolution and forgiveness. And looking back, she recognized the smell of whiskey on his breath, and she almost hoped he'd been drinking to forget her.  
  
And it had been years before she broke her own promises and absolution was truly granted, for when she saw him again it was not in a smoky club or from across a bed of satin, but at her own apartment door, and he had peered around her, his eyes begging for the sight of his son as a drowning man cries for land. And she had saved him, thrown him the proverbial life preserver, because no matter how badly she wanted to hate him and how many times he had abandoned her, she loved him, because he was her first lover and for so long afterward, he had been her last.  
---  
  
She had cried when she saw him for the first time, wrapped in a receiving blanket and crying, curls of wispy dark hair matted with moisture, her own eyes wet with tears. She had loved him, then, from the moment she saw him and the moment she held him, and it no longer mattered that she had been left behind and they were alone, because she loved him, and he was her son.  
  
He had quieted the moment she held him, stared up at her with dark blue eyes and an inquisitiveness that her mother said she had possessed as well. "He looks just like you, Mag," her mother had whispered, fingering the tiny hands of her grandson, but she had frowned and turned away, for she had seen the tiny marks that would one day make dimples, like the ones her lover had and she didn't. Then the nurse had come in and her mother had left, and she'd  
unbuttoned her top and held him for the first time, watching as he latched onto her breast and gurgled, nuzzling against her when he grew tired and full.  
  
And she had feared him, because he reminded her so much of his father, and he was so small and so innocent and she was so young and unsure, but she loved him as she held him, for he reminded her of all she could never be or have, and she sought absolution for sins she had never committed - for his sake. And she loved him, because he reminded her so much of his father and still stared up at her with eyes filled with adoration and trust, and that had  
been enough.  
  
They were alone, but they would survive.  
  
---  
  
She had cried again each time she couldn't quiet him, couldn't placate him, make him happy. She had feared she would drop him, or that he would cry for her in the night and she wouldn't hear, or that she was feeding him wrong and he would get indigestion. It was those little things, those nagging fears, that kept him sleeping in her bedroom until he was three and demanded a bed like all `big boys' had. And yet, he still came into her room many times, clutching a furry animal and sobbing, wanted her to check for monsters beneath that same `big boy' bed or inside the closet, and then he'd wait in his bed until she was back in hers, before crawling down the hall and back into her room, sleeping on the foot of the bed, intent on protecting his mother as much as himself.  
  
He heard her crying at night. She never knew he was awake, hovering just beyond the doorway, watching Mommy as she sobbed. She never knew that he loved her and understood that it was for Daddy that she was crying, or that he stood guard at her door to make sure none of the monsters in the closets that he heard about at the playground or in Child Care came after his mommy when she was too tired to notice. She never knew, until the morning he had come back, and she'd stood at the door as he peered around her, searching for sight of his son. And she'd let him in without a word and guided him to the sofa, then returned with Benjamin in her arms. They'd sat across from him, all watching wide-eyed and without words, and the tears had slid down her face as she sat him on the floor in front of his father, whispering in her sorrowful way, "This is your father, Papi."  
  
And then he'd begun to cry too.  
  
She hadn't known he'd heard her crying, seen her in pain, until he smiled up at them with childlike innocence and his father's dimples, and announced with a happiness she'd never noticed in his voice before, though it more than likely had been there, "Don't be sad anymore, Mama, Papa's home now." And their eyes had met over their son's head as his father picked him up, and she'd shook her head and wished it could be that easy, before reclaiming her child and her life and going back to the SFPD where she no longer worked a desk job, but the streets.  
  
And sixteen months later, he'd given her a ring with as much sincerity as he could manage and spoke words she'd dreamed of and begged for in her prayers and her nightmares alike, and she'd told him to wait, because he'd made her wait so long and she had never thought he'd come back for her or their son.  
  
She'd begun crying again, but this time she knew her son would not hear, for he was with his father and she was the only one left, and as she remembered waking up twisted in satin sheets alone and forsaken, she knew that she loved him but would never marry him, because she loved him too much to say, "yes."  
  
He had been young as she had, young and angry and foolish, and things had progressed farther than any of them had ever expected or planned. She loved him despite his foolishness and anger and remorsefulness, and she loved him because he had been kind and gentle and firm, and she loved him because he was free and wild, and she knew he'd never stay in one place for very long. He was everything she wanted and all she'd never be or have.  
  
And he was her first lover, but he would not be her last.  
  
References  
  
1. mailto:lizaausten@tri-countynet.net  
2. mailto:malenka@malenkaya.com 


End file.
